Chris Blattman recommends, and highlights some powerful quotations from, Robert Worth‘s “Can American Diplomacy Ever Come Out of Its Bunker?”
Alemayehu Fentaw on Muslim protests in Ethiopia:
There is little evidence to support the Ethiopian Government’s claim that its own Muslim community poses a legitimate threat to national and regional security. It only seems to be driven by a shrewd strategic calculus. Since Ethiopia is a critical partner in the West’s ‘War on Terror’, the government thinks it helps to foment fear of the rise of radical Islam in Ethiopia that would lead to an improbable takeover of power by political Islam. The current Ethiopian Government seeks to keep Western support and aid flowing into the country through characterizing the Muslim community as linked to Islamic radicals and thus a threat to national security.
Baobab on Sierra Leone’s elections.
Duncan Green/The World Bank: “What Have We Learned from Five Years of Research on African Power and Politics?”
Two on oil:
- Loomnie: “Oil Contracts: How to Read and Understand Them.”
- Laine Strutton: “A Very Brief Chronology of the Nigerian Oil Economy.”
Orlando Reade: “Revolutions and Dancing.”
Amb. John Campbell comments on “a new report by the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security, ‘Deepening Democracy: A Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide.’”
Roving Bandit on artisanal gold mining in South Sudan.